


Girls Never Know (How You Make a Boy Feel)

by Lang



Series: Alpha Alice & Omega FP [2]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/M, Intersex, mentions of mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 12:51:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11081967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lang/pseuds/Lang
Summary: Visiting hours with FP Jones.





	Girls Never Know (How You Make a Boy Feel)

**Author's Note:**

> This will make more sense if you read the first fic in the series, but hopefully can still stand alone.

The standard prison intake: they stripped him down for a physical, figured out what he hadn't bothered to mention, and always -- always -- asked, "You got an alpha?"

Standard. But that didn't mean FP had to like it. That question always made his brain go dark, anyway. Want warred with shame warred with absolute refusal. Yeah, sure, a part of him wanted an alpha. Only every other part had always refused to take one on. What kind of man would he be if every month he relied on somebody to fuck away his heats?

Most of his life he'd been screwing with his cycle anyway. Liquor held heat at bay, helped reduce it to just a few hours of whimpering discomfort when it did come. So did acid, coke, heroin. But not meth, for some reason. 

_That just fucks you up,_ Rex used to tell him with a grin. _You want to get fucked up, FP?_

Once, then never again. He stuck with liquor, mostly. Whiskey was an old friend, while drugs -- meth especially -- were strangers he picked up a bar that ended up beating the shit out of him. So maybe it was a fine line, the line between boozehound and junkie, but he knew what side of it he wanted to be on.

Problem was, in prison they didn't even let you have whiskey. You got suppressants instead, and they charged you for them so they could get you where they wanted you: underpaid, sewing underpants or packaging fruit or stamping license plates or something. 

The first time he did a stint, the suppressants were still those little pink capsules that made you nauseous. These days you got a patch the prison doctors fixed on the back of your ear. Still made you nauseous. Then you and your cuffs got marched to the omega block (the first time, he'd been embarrassed and furious, but now he wasn't so stupid to think he wanted to be with alpha guards or alpha prisoners), and then it was you and a cellmate and counting down the days.

Keller had threatened him with twenty years. In the end he got seven, but his defense attorney said he could whittle it down by being good. But he always, always hit a wall in the first few weeks where he wasn't sure he wanted to whittle it down. Prison meant three square meals and doctors on call and not worrying about what Jughead saw when he looked at him. He'd cried when he first had to leave Jug. Skinny little thing, big pale eyes, but his -- _his_ kid. And FP'd had to leave him for three months with Gladys, who treated Jug okay but didn't have any real affection for him. Boy wasn't hers, after all. 

When he got out Jug had already started to show the signs. Six years old, younger than his old man had been when FP had turned. FP had taken one look at him standing in the door of the trailer, waiting for his dad. Then he'd thanked Fred Andrews for the ride home and gone on a bender. Argued with Gladys when he got back, screamed at his kid. He didn't mean to scream, exactly, but the problem with liquor was that it made him unpredictable even to himself.

Kept heat at bay, though. Kept him from having to think about what he'd passed on to his boy. The worst thing in his life.

In prison, there was always a sickness at first, a pseudo-heat. The doctors would say it was his punishment for fucking with his biology so much, that period in the first few days when his body was adjusting to the chemicals. He'd get too hot. He'd start to need things. Start to think of Alice, the slick sharp blondness of her. He'd smell so bad his cellmates would always complain -- _shit, this guy needs a good dicking_. Like his old man used to taunt him about.

One thing he never did with Jughead was taunt him like that. Never. Never hit him either. That was another fine line he managed to stay on the right side of. He was pretty proud of that, but in secret. It was like being proud of not having been Jason Blossom's murderer. You couldn't get too uppity about not doing the shit you weren't supposed to do, especially when what you did do was still bad.

The truth was, he deserved seven years with the patches and the routine physical prodding, facing the inescapable fact that he wasn't a good man. Actually, he was barely a man at all. Real men might end up in prison, but they sure didn't end up in the omega block. 

He was starting to adjust, come out of the sickness, the first time Jug came around. In the meantime Alice had told Jug everything, which meant that FP looked like the bad guy again. Because he'd known the truth about Jughead all along and hadn't said a thing.

"Why did you even keep me?" Jughead bit out. 

That was FP's kid. Quiet, smart. Always in his head. But that didn't mean he couldn't gut his old man with six words. 

He took after his ma that way. 

-

One thing about Alice: not a single other person at Riverdale High had ever held a candle to her. Not even Fred. 

The funny thing was, sometimes Alice hadn't seemed to know it. Not that Alice let anybody at Riverdale High get to her. Alice never let anybody get anything -- she always had to have it all. But still. She wanted to be North Side so bad, like they were, wanted to master the whole clean-collared suburban thing. FP wasn't stupid. He knew that was why she didn't like to get too friendly with him at school. She didn't want people knowing that she knew somebody like him.

Him, he didn't want to look too friendly because that way what they had could be a secret.

Back then, FP hadn't bothered to keep a lot of secrets. He was pretty public about what he'd be willing to do to a girl if he got her back to the Shaggin' Wagon. And most of those girls were a blur now, and so were the guys, and so was _Fred_ , some days. In the Shaggin' Wagon FP was master of the house, star of the Bulldogs, fucking who he pleased.

Back at Sunnyside, no question about it, they fucked because _Alice_ pleased. 

Which was to say, that even if she wasn't dicking him, even if he wasn't doing it like an omega, he was still there on demand. An easy lay. FP on tap. 

But it was still good. Good when she'd force him down and ride him, good when she'd guide him to her vagina and make him eat her out until she was slick and messy. The best when he was on his knees, alternating between her opening and her alpha member, feeling the knot with his hand while he licked the tip.

Afterwards his brain would shy away from that piece. He'd go out with the gang, get a drink or twenty. It was easy to forget you'd been on your knees, getting wet from giving a blowjob, when you were shitfaced. It was easy to ignore what your dad would say if he knew. 

But something in him always reacted to that the most. Felt right, somehow. Alice above him, mean as a snake but looking like an angel, with her full breasts and wide hips and her cupid's bow mouth and the way she could just say, sharp, "FP. I've gotta talk to you," and he'd come to heel like a dog.

He'd been in and out of prison for years and every time, to figure out what to do with him, they'd ask, "You got an alpha?" 

Omegas with alphas had rights. Conjugal rights. They couldn't stuff you full of chemicals if you wanted somebody to take care of you the natural way.

FP had never wanted that. Or maybe never admitted that he wanted that. Sometimes he'd wonder if, if she'd asked the right way, he wouldn't have just turned over and let her have whatever she wanted. 

-

Betty was the one who told him about the search for Chic.

Shit, Betty was the one who told him they were even calling the other kid Chic. It made him groan. He'd gotten enough heat for giving Jughead a name Jughead hated, mostly because he'd been high as a kite, disgusted with his body but pleased with his kid; and worried somehow that if he didn't tag Jug as _his_ right there and then, then the nurses at the municipal hospital would decide to take him away.

'Chic,' though, was hardly any better than Forsythe. 

"How'd you get your name?" FP groused at Betty now. "It's a good one. You got off lucky."

She did. Betty suited her sweet-but-no-nonsense name. Tough like her mother, smart like her mother, but kinder, somehow. Strong enough that she didn't need to be mean the way Alice did. It messed FP up that Jughead couldn't have what he wanted with her -- a girl like Betty would have been good for Jug. Would be good for anybody, probably. Whoever ended up with her would have to get down on their knees to thank god for the opportunity to get down on their knees in front of her, even FP could see that. 

"I don't think his name is Chic anymore," Betty said. "It would be easier if it was. Juggie and I narrowed down only five towns he could have been adopted out to based on the Quiet Mercy records, but obviously if his family moved, that's a factor we have to consider, so--"

"Jughead didn't say he was looking for his brother," FP said. 

Visited every month, but hadn't mentioned that. Not once. Never mentioned Alice after that first day. Sometimes he'd bring up how Gladys and Jellybean were doing, and FP was always grateful enough to get that. He wouldn't press for more.

Now Betty tilted her chin, looked up casually at the ceiling. It was a wholesome gesture. It probably left Alice delighted to have a kid that wholesome, the same way it left FP delighted to have a kid as smart as Jug. You always liked it when your kids could be what you couldn't.

"Does Juggie not mention anything about our family?" Betty asked lightly.

FP gave her a hard look.

"You come here to tell me about Chic or to ask me questions about my son?"

Betty's chin tilted again, still wholesome, but now also somehow annoyed.

"I may have decided to drop in for investigative purposes," she admitted. "My parents are splitting up."

It was the kind of news that had nothing to do with FP, and yet even he wasn't such an asshole that he'd deny he had _any_ involvement.

"Riverdale Homecoming royalty, split up?" he said instead. "No way, kid. That's not the Cooper way."

"Neither is having babies out of wedlock, stealing evidence from the police, or secretly being a Blossom," Betty said, with a roll of her eyes.

"Secretly being a _what_?"

She looked at him coolly, like she was pleased to see him thrown off. The resemblance to her mother had never been stronger.

"The first time my parents got like this, it was Jughead who helped," she said. "Jug was the one who told me that I could be stronger than them. And I _was_. But only because I had him there to help, Mr. Jones. And now he helps look for Chic, but he won't come around for anything else. He doesn't seem to want to think of me or Polly as family. And my mom won't bring him in, even though he has every _right_ to be part of our family. She just--"

Betty's eyes were wet. She gestured at nothing, at the prison wall, like she was disgusted.

"--she's pretending she doesn't even know how to handle him--"

FP's brain supplied what must be going on: Alice and Jughead, her laced-up venom and his quiet refusal. Her the unstoppable force, but him the object that wouldn't budge, not for anything. 

He couldn't help it. He laughed. Betty looked outraged.

"Shit," he said, a half second too late. "Betty. I'm not laughing at you. It's more that she's not pretending, your mom. She probably really can't handle him."

Alice was a shark, barreling straight for whatever she wanted, mistress of her domain. But Jug, he was a smart, slinky alleycat kind of kid, one paw in the waters of the North Side, but otherwise proud to be an outsider. He'd know that Alice couldn't touch him if he just kept far away enough out of reach. He'd know that he and Alice weren't even in the same ecosystem.

"This isn't something you cooked up with her?" Betty said. "Or with him? To keep him away from us--"

"I haven't cooked anything up with your mom for twenty years," FP said. "And Jug won't work with me for anything. You know that."

His voice came out harsher than intended. Trouble was, it was all linked. Jughead being the way Jughead was, removed even from his family, not trusting FP. And FP being somebody who had made Jug that way. Not intentionally. Just by keeping him from the woman who'd sired him, keeping him to the South Side. Proud about it. FP had wanted a kid who was a little proud to be himself, even if it made him an outsider. The anti-Alice, that way.

"You gonna tell Chic about me when you find him?" he said now. "You don't have to. I'll keep quiet if you just want him to be a Cooper. Would that smooth things over with your folks?"

Betty stared at him.

"We're not going to find him just to _lie_ to him," she said, like the idea was unthinkable. "He's your son."

"Right," FP said. "Well. Might be better for him not to be."

-

One thing somebody sent him, and at first he thought it was Betty because Betty was the only one of Alice's daughters he'd ever spoken to, but when he squinted at the label it said _Polly_ , so who knew what was going on there -- was an article. 

The article. The one that had come out just before his sentencing. The one his public defender had told him about. FP had barely cared when she'd said it had probably swayed the judge, because she hadn't told him who'd written it.

Alice could write. She really could. FP had always told Jughead he took after his mother with his stories. Jug had assumed he meant Gladys, who was smart and imaginative too. But obviously he'd meant the mother who would lay out South Side-hating crap in every Saturday edition, who always managed to make it sound like she wasn't just bitter about where she really came from.

This wasn't South Side-hating crap.

Though sure, yeah, you could tell right away that she _really_ hated the South Side. The whole thing was a picture of what it was like to grow up there and hate it, so FP, who'd always felt pretty comfortable there when you got down to it, learned as much from it as any North Sider.

What he learned hurt, though. In two ways. First, it laid bare that girl from twenty years ago, the venomous girl who would shove him down, take a drag of her cigarette, then kiss him so deep it was like she was blowing smoke rings around his brain. The secret girl. The one he knew would call for him and force him to his knees and he wouldn't mind, not really. 

So whatever illusions he had about that girl being just his, nobody else's, those were fucked now. Now she was out there for the world to see.

And second, it was pretty clear that he'd never been hers, that she'd had a lot more going on than just him.

Funny how that could hurt him, twenty years later. Obviously there'd never been a bond there. FP had never bonded with anybody. Closest thing he had to a real relationship was the fragile connection he had with Jughead. At least that came through in Jug's writing, in the careful way Jug cut holes out of his story to avoid mentioning FP at all, rationalizing and lying to protect his dad. Same thing FP tried to do for him.

But there was no FP-shaped hole in Alice's writing. There was just no FP. In Alice's story, there was no need to mention the trailer park easy lay.

Why would she mention him? She'd gotten everything she wanted from him. She'd even shown up one day and taken what he wouldn't give her freely, shoved her dick in and fucked him the way his old man always said he was made for.

Sober, it hurt to think about. The way she'd known exactly how to work her fingers between his legs, to get him throbbing and hot. The fullness when she'd pushed in. The emptiness when she was done, when she left him aching and whimpering still, unsure of what had just happened.

He hadn't hated her for it. Not really. He'd hated how easily his body had given into it, how for nine months after that he was in and out of clinics and the hospital, unable to take a drink, heavy and getting heavier. Jughead had been a bitch to carry to term. Great when he was finally born, wanted the second the nurses put him in FP's arms. But FP still had the faint stretch marks on his stomach, still had the weird aches in his pelvis every now and then, still got dizzy for no reason sometimes -- something to do with his thyroid, the doctors had said. But then they'd also said it would go away after a few months. It hadn't. 

Well, it wasn't like FP had taken care of himself afterwards. That was what had been hardest about having Jughead growing inside him. Not his old man making comments, not even the Serpents he'd had to knock around to keep them in line. Not the headaches and nausea and feeling indescribably like shit every time he tried to stand up and it turned out he was working with a different body. It was how suddenly he'd had to take _care_ of it, because there was somebody else in there too. FP had known even then that he was bad at taking care of things. Not as bad as his dad had been, but not being the worst at something didn't mean you were any good at it, either.

He should have given Jughead up. Done the sensible thing, like Alice had done with Chic. But he hadn't wanted someone else to have his boy. Not even Alice, with her perfect blonde babies and her big, fancy house. He'd figured Alice wouldn't want Jughead anyway, would see Jug as just another piece of the South Side holding her back. He'd known even then that he didn't want anybody looking at his son like that.

-

In the spring, Jug showed up with Gladys and Jellybean in tow.

They sat Jughead-Jellybean-Gladys, Jelly hemmed in by her protectors, on one side of a table in the big visitors' room. There were plenty of guys getting visits today but Jellybean's excited chatter drowned out everybody else for FP. She was talking about some teacher who was unfair, getting down to minute specifics about it, and FP just took her in: the pin-straight dark hair, the black eyes, the quick hands. He hardly ever let himself think about his girl because he wasn't sure he'd ever be allowed to see her again. But here she was, in the flesh.

Jughead and Gladys watched him watch her. This had always been what brought the two of them together: looking after Jellybean. Making sure Jellybean never saw the worst of him. In a way, he had to be grateful to them for that. Jelly didn't seem to care that he was in prison. She was just happy to see him.

But soon Jughead tugged her away -- apparently there was some kind of waiting area with vending machines he wanted her to see -- and then Gladys was sliding divorce papers across the table.

"You told Jughead I'm not his mom," she said, apropos of nothing. "I wondered if you would."

More like, she'd taken the kid they both knew was hers, and left him to explain to the other one why he'd been left behind. Something FP hadn't been able to do, not that Gladys knew that. 

He wanted a drink. But there was no getting one here, though supposedly some guys in the main block knew how to cook something up using crumbled bread, ketchup, and fruit cups. FP would have drunk it if he'd had it on hand -- shit, he would've downed _antifreeze_ \-- but since there wasn't any, he looked at the papers instead.

She was agreeing to let Jellybean come to Riverdale once a year. That was it. 

"That's more for Jughead than you," Gladys said, when she caught him tracing that paragraph with a finger.

Even though Jughead wasn't her kid, Gladys had mostly done right by him. She'd kept him fed, made sure his shoes fit. She let him call his sister whenever he wanted. 

FP signed the papers. 

"One thing," Gladys said, once she took the papers back and tucked them in her bag. "Jughead's getting mixed up with Alice. What's with that?" 

Gladys and Alice had history, because there wasn't a Sunnyside girl who didn't have history with Alice. Alice didn't play nice with others. 

"You want me to put my nose in it before I go, tell her to back off?" Gladys asked. 

"Leave it alone," FP said.

Gladys gave him a confused look.

She didn't know Alice had sired Jughead. FP had never told anybody. It just wasn't anybody's business, though Alice's mother had once stood in the door of her trailer, stared at a three-year-old Jug playing in the dirt, and guessed the truth. She'd never been the nicest woman, but FP had brought Jughead to her funeral anyway. Wasn't like Alice would have shown up, and everybody deserved to have kin see them off. 

"Suit yourself," Gladys said now. "She's inviting him to dinner at her house every week, apparently. You know Alice wouldn't do that if she didn't think she could get something out of him."

That was true, but in this case what Alice wanted wasn't something FP felt like denying her anymore. He was incarcerated and Jellybean was normally three states away; it wasn't like _they_ could give Jug a family. 

"Well, I'm here for the weekend," Gladys said. "I could sneak in a conjugal if you want."

He did seriously consider it for a minute. He hadn't had sex in months, just rubbed one off in his bunk, or -- in his more desperate moments -- stuck some fingers up inside his hole and gotten off that way, the only high he was allowed in here. His cellmate would always wrinkle his nose in the morning and say, _shit, how long's it been since you had an alpha?_

So apparently it was pretty obvious who he was thinking about. Not Gladys. Gladys would be like taking a swig of that fruit cup ketchup stuff when really what he wanted was whiskey.

"Be better if you dropped me a donation for the commissary," he said. "I'm gonna be in hock to the jail by the time I get out of here. Suppressants aren't cheap."

"A donation? What happened to a man earning his own wages?" Gladys said, raising an eyebrow.

"A man gets tired of stamping license plates for ten cents an hour," FP said, which was true.

-

Over the summer, Jughead and Betty started to visit him together. Mostly to give him Chic-updates.

FP couldn't figure out how or why or even when he'd become someone they wanted to share this with. He did think it had been Jug's decision. Had to have been. Betty was generous to a fault. She would have let him in on it no matter what, just because she wanted to see the Jones men getting along. Jughead -- Jughead had to be won. 

Somehow FP had won him, though he couldn't figure out how. Maybe it was that he'd more or less managed good behavior, or maybe it was that Jughead hadn't seen him drunk in months. Or maybe it was just that he'd kept his cool with Gladys and Jellybean.

Either way, he was in on the search now. They would trace maps on the table of all the places Chic could be, squiggly paths that made sense to them if not to FP. Only five towns in the diocese that permitted adoption through religious institutions like the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, and the Sisters didn't need to go farther afield than that, because there were other orders operating in the other dioceses. So that left Riverdale, Greendale, Lawndale, Hillsdale, and Kort-Lapeer. They couldn't get at any adoption records -- those were sealed -- but between them and Alice they were scouring the area's elementary, middle, and high school yearbooks, trying to find the right boy in the right age range, hoping that Chic hadn't moved before he'd been captured in a school picture.

That still left them with thirty-three schools to visit, hundreds of school pictures to review. With not a lot to go on, either. 

"He has your eyes, Mr. Jones," Betty said. "We know that."

"Not sure that'll help you much," FP told her. He lifted his cuffed hands to the eyes in question anyway. "Get a good look, I guess."

Betty laughed. But Jughead said, seriously, "Alice'll know him when she sees him."

So it had become _Alice_ instead of _Mrs. Cooper_. FP grinned at Jughead, tried to catch his eye, to get him to explain this. Jug's gaze slid away. 

"What a family Chic will find, once we find him," he said, to no one in particular. "Weirdo brother. Divorcing mom. Dad in prison--"

"It's a family that loves and wants him," Betty said firmly. Steel in her tone. 

"Yeah," Jughead said, after a few seconds. "Well, as long as he's not a jock, I guess."

Chic was starting to take shape for all of them. Even FP. Another son, this time with his eyes. And what else? Alice's satisfied cat grin? Her fair hair? Would he be pale and quiet like Jughead, or a pain in the ass like his old man? Would he have steel in his voice like Betty? Would he stay, like Polly Cooper, a mystery that sent FP painful packages every once in a while, necessary rebukes for the Jason Blossom thing?

-

They found him in the fall.

FP had just completed a year. Ticked off three-hundred-sixty-five days, just a little more than two thousand to go. He felt calmer than he had a year ago, but more tired too. His longest stint before this had been ten months. For ten months, prison was fine. Beyond that, it started to drain a man. 

He was the pale one now, ashen and lean after a year of bland prison food. Betty was sparkling because she always was. And Jug -- Jug looked okay. FP's boy was a survivor, and he'd survived this past year alright. He'd won some kind of writing award at the end of the last school year, even. FP had heard about it from Betty. He understood that Alice had gotten her hands on the award, that Alice was the one who had it framed and up in her crafts room. 

He wouldn't have expected any less of Alice.

Well, there was a time he wouldn't have expected Alice to have a _crafts room_ , but people changed. Alice was closer to the person she wanted Chic to meet. Maybe FP was closer to the person he wanted Chic to meet, too.

"His name isn't Chic, obviously," Jughead said. "Though Chic might be better."

"I think his name is cute," Betty said with a smile, the same smile nurses used when they said things like _the needle won't hurt, I promise_.

"Harvey. Kinkle," Jughead said, making the space between first and last name so big that it was hard to miss the ridiculousness of it.

"You're just mad because he coaches football," Betty said.

"He coaches football?" FP asked. He felt a grin crack across his face. Couldn't help it, it just came.

"Yeah, don't get too excited," Jughead said. "He lives in Greendale. Played for Greendale U and then became the coach at his old high school. Which would be your old archrivals, Baxter High."

"Aw, fuck," FP said without meaning to, because once you were a Bulldog, you were always a Bulldog, and the Bulldogs hated nothing so much as Baxter High.

"Exactly," Jughead said. He leaned back, clearly satisfied by the dramatic irony of it all. 

"How's Alice taking it?" FP asked without thinking.

He never asked Jug about her. Ever. It was an unspoken pact they had. Jughead got to handle Alice in his own way, and he seemed to treat Alice and FP like foods that couldn't -- shouldn't -- touch. 

Jughead wasn't a dumb kid, after all.

Now he looked away and bit his lip. Like he was just going to pretend FP hadn't asked the question. So it was Betty who answered it, genuinely and without much hesitation.

"It's funny -- she was so -- so powerful? I guess? When she insisted that the Sisters verify Harvey Kinkle was really him. I mean, she basically bullied them into it."

"You never saw so many terrified nuns," Jughead put in.

"But then once we had confirmation, she started up making up reasons not to contact him."

That made perfect sense to FP. Alice was Superwoman, but even she got spooked sometimes. He remembered how worried she'd been when they'd first applied for Riverdale High instead of South Side, how she'd made him open their letters, and made him promise to just trash them and say nothing if it turned out she hadn't gotten in.

Alice liked to control all the outcomes. Nothing worried her more than the unknown, and right now Chic-Harvey was a big unknown.

"You two should be the first to meet him," FP decided. 

Betty and Jughead stared at him.

"You're her scouting mission," he explained. "You go. Ring his doorbell, make up something about -- about interviewing the enemy team, breaking down barriers. Come on, Betty, you're good at this. And you get to know him a little, and you report back, so she feels more in control. It's the least you can do for Alice, after all she's done for you."

He threw that last part in because he knew, just knew, that for all her faults Alice was a good mother. Not a doubt in his mind about that. 

-

"Who are you to send my kids on scouting missions?" Alice demanded, a month later. 

Slapped the table when she said it. She was hovering over it, refusing to sit down, looking down her nose at the plastic folding chairs like she thought they were dirty. Which they were.

FP didn't really process her question. He was too busy taking her in. 

"Your hair," was all he managed to say. 

The rest of her looked great too. Obviously. She was _Alice_ , long legs and a knockout figure. He even liked the satiny, blousey, buttoned up kind of top she had on, like she'd just come here from chairing a PTA meeting. Alice would know what to wear to go straight from parenthood to prison.

But her hair was black. Really black -- blacker than his. It made her eyes look bright and catlike. Dangerous. She probably had the rest of the PTA clamoring to do what she wanted.

"I didn't come here to talk about my hair," she said, pointing an accusing finger down at him.

"Looks good, though," he said politely. "This mid-life crisis divorcee thing is working for you, Alice."

She smiled her fuck you smile. FP had enough chemicals running through his system that he shouldn't be going all weak and wet on a dime over it, but he did. He had to shift his legs around to deal with the way his dick firmed up. Tried to ignore the throbbing want further back.

He hadn't seen her in a year and he was pretty sure she hated him, but his body didn't know that. 

She finally sat down, making it look like she was doing the folding chair a favor.

"What do you think will happen when Harvey Kinkle realizes that the two sweet teenagers who showed up at his door to interview him were lying to him?" she said. "Do you think that's the kind of first impression I want my son to have of me? That I send teenagers to do my dirty work?"

"Don't you?" FP asked. "I got a trailer somebody broke into around this time last year--"

"That wasn't my _own_ kids," Alice hissed. "If Archie Andrews and Veronica Lodge want to go snooping where they shouldn't, that's Fred and Hermione's problem, not mine. But when it comes to my kids, I keep them on the morally correct path. That's what Harvey should know about me, that I make sure to do what's best for my children--"

"That when you gave him up," FP said, leaning into his manacled hands and looking up at her, "That was 'cause you thought it was best?"

She flushed. Bingo. He nodded at her for a second, just reveling in the way he'd been able to guess that right. He did know her. She wasn't his, he sure as hell wasn't hers, but some things about her were still his to know. 

"Blame it on me," he said now. "It's my fault anyway, right? Once he finds out his old man's in prison, he's not gonna to have high expectations for me anyway."

"What makes you think I'm going to tell him about you?" Alice said.

He knew Betty would tell Chic. Shit, Jughead would tell him. Jughead valued honesty. So it didn't matter if Alice still wanted to file him away as a dirty little secret. Shouldn't matter.

But it hurt anyway. He always forgot how good Alice was at hurting people. She was a genius at it. She'd get you dripping for her, wanting her, ready to get down and lick her feet if she'd just shoot you a smile, and then instead of smiling she'd kick you in the teeth.

He didn't get down on his knees and beg to know his son. He was enough of a man still that he wasn't going to do that. Instead he said, "Nice, Alice. Well, then I don't know why you came here to scream at me about him. He's your problem, then, not mine."

"Exactly," she snapped. "He's been my problem, not yours, for twenty-odd years. You only just found out about him. I only let the kids come and talk to you about him out of the kindness of my heart--"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Betty and Jughead do what they want," FP said. "Those are two people in this world you can't fuck with, at least."

"You don't get to control how I meet him!" Alice said, so loud that her voice reverberated off the cinder block walls of the visitor's room. The guards near the door straightened up. FP pushed himself carefully off of the table, away from her, and kept his voice low when he next spoke.

"I was trying to help," he said. "Jug and Betty said you were having a hard time with the idea of meeting him--"

Alice rolled her eyes. "Why would they come to _you_ for advice about that?"

The superiority in her voice was what got him. He was still gonna go back to his cell after this and -- and _finger_ himself, ashamed, thinking about her. But he'd be mad as hell when he did it. It was so easy for her to make it clear what she thought of him. She really thought she was Miss Mom America now, middle class and respectable, and he was just some trash she'd left behind on the South Side.

"I'm Jughead's father," he said, making every word clear. "Me. He knows that. He knows he can come to me when he wants. And I think Betty asked because you know what? She likes me. I bet that kills you, Alice, your perfect blonde kid having such bad taste she decides to like somebody like me--"

"Oh, don't flatter yourself," Alice said, rolling her eyes again. "Betty can like who she wants."

"You tell her that?" FP said. "Because that's bullshit. I know you. You like to control what's yours, like to keep it clean and perfect. If you don't want it, though, it doesn't matter what happens to it. Look at me. I have two kids with you, but the only time you waste on me is to come yell at me about trying to do something nice for you --"

"You think I've been -- what -- ignoring you?" Alice said, voice starting to go high again. "You egomaniac. I've been in the early stages of a messy divorce for months now, and you think I was going to show up here as soon as I decided to separate from Hal, just waltz on down to my ex-boyfriend, who is in prison? Do you know what that looks like to a family court judge?"

He meant to say something like, "Sure, you're all about the looks," but somehow his brain got sidetracked and stuck on _ex-boyfriend_.

"I'm not your ex-boyfriend," he said. 

He felt about sixteen years old and very dumb saying it like that. He wanted a drink. Wanted it worse than he had when it had been Gladys across the table. But apparently making him feel stupid was enough to calm Alice down, because she just looked at him coolly, and when she spoke next she wasn't shouting anymore.

"Fine," she said. "The friend I used to walk home with, and spend most of my free time with, and casually fuck--" fuck. Fuck. That went straight to his groin, the way she said the word. She said it better than anyone else did, dirtier somehow. "--every chance I got. But, you know, I'm not going to describe it to Hal or my kids or my lawyer that way, so sorry. Ex-boyfriend it is."

"You told your lawyer about me?" he said. "Why?"

"Assuming I can wrap up this thing with Hal before Jughead is twenty-one, I want to someday get custody of our son," she said. "The one rotting in a South Side foster home, FP!"

He knew he should be mad about this, but since it wasn't like she could be worse for Jug that he was, he let it slide.

"Oh," he said. "My lawyer mentioned you too. Your writing, anyway."

She looked like she couldn't see the relevance of this. They fell into silence. They must have chased away most of the other guys, because they were the only two people in the visiting room now, and the only sound was the tick of the big clock on the wall. FP glanced at it. Five minutes left. Then their time would be up. He wasn't sure if he wanted those five minutes to fly by, or if it would be better to have time just stop. Then he'd be sitting here forever with his dick tenting in his pants, embarrassingly wet and hungry for her, but at least he'd have her. Not the careful way Jughead cut her out of the conversation, or the way Betty smiled around her name. But Alice, the real Alice. 

"What's that?" she said suddenly.

He looked up at her. She was pointing again, this time at the patch behind his ear. He grinned.

"Suppressants," he said. "That's what they give a jailhouse omega who doesn't have an alpha showing up for regular visits. Don't worry about it. It's nothing to do with you."

She gave him a look he couldn't decipher. With her hair so dark and her eyes that assessing blue-green, she looked a little like Jughead. Like with Jughead, it was hard to meet that gaze. He looked away. He knew she'd get mean if he tried to offer an opinion on it, knew he didn't have any right to an opinion on it, but he sort of wanted her blonde again. 

He wanted to keep her and Jug nice and separate in his head. 

"Take it off," she said. They had maybe one minute left.

"What?" he said.

"You said that's for omegas who don't have an alpha," she said. "Take it off."

He was grinning nervously and couldn't really figure out why. 

"What are you--" he said. "What does that mean--"

The alarm sounded, signaling the end of visiting hours. She stood up, prim about it, and looked down at him like she thought he was stupid.

"Means I'll see you next month, FP," she said. "Or next week. Whenever that garbage is out of your system."

**Author's Note:**

> Madchen Amick looks insanely hot with dark hair.  
> Skeet Ulrich is a regular, hallelujah.  
> This fic is brought to you by [this tumblr post](https://joeyfalconetti.tumblr.com/post/160711088326/me-deleting-a-scene-from-my-fic-ugh-that-was).


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